2006 in review.
Key events that shaped the technology industry.

Bill Gates Leaving Microsoft:

In June, Bill Gates announced that he will gradually leave his everyday role at Microsoft, and spend more time running his charity.

My Opinion: Average computer users need not worry about this. I doubt that any drastic changes will be made.

Internet Explorer 7:

Released in October, this was the first update in 5 years for Microsoft's flagship browser. Threatened by the growing number of users switching to Firefox, Microsoft finally added key features such as RSS, tabbed browsing, and better standards compliance.

My Opinion: Despite these improvements to Internet Explorer, Firefox is still a much better browser. If you haven't switched to Firefox yet, visit http://www.getfirefox.com.

New Processors from Intel:

It's official. The new Intel Core 2 Duo processors have overtaken the AMD X2 line as the fastest consumer CPUs. Thanks to new manufacturing techniques, they are very affordable, too.

My Opinion: The Core 2 Duo is a great value, but you might not want to buy a new computer until Vista (see next month's newsletter) has been released, and the bugs have been fixed.

Blogging:

Blogging grew in popularity again this year, with over 63 million active blogs as of December. A blog is a user generated website which typically provides commentary on a specific topic, or serves as an online diary.

My Opinion: Blogs are here to stay. If you have something to tell the world about, you can start your own blog at a place like http://www.blogger.com.

YouTube:

In November, Google Inc closed a deal to buy YouTube.com for $1.65 Billion. YouTube.com is a website where users can upload home videos, and anyone in the world can then view them. This is the first time since the dot-com bust that a site was acquired for over a billion dollars.

My Opinion: This is a sign that e business has fully recovered from the dot-com bust, and the industry is viable again.